On The Rise receives $100K Cummings Foundation grant

Friday

Aug 2, 2019 at 9:00 AM

On The Rise Inc., based in Cambridge, is one of 100 nonprofits to receive grants of $100,000 each through Cummings Foundation’s $100K for 100 program.

On The Rise, founded in 1995, provides safety, advocacy and community to nearly 450 homeless and formerly homeless women each year. On The Rise’s Safe Haven Program provides necessities for daily survival and commits to building long-term supportive relationships with women they can use to catalyze major change in their lives, including moving beyond homelessness. The Keep The Keys housing retention program continues these relationships with women, offering a full breadth of supportive services from the start of their housing search to years of support to keep their keys.

Martha Sandler, executive director, and Delphene Mooney, director of development and communications, joined about 300 other guests at a reception at TradeCenter 128 in Woburn to celebrate the $10 million infusion into greater Boston’s nonprofit sector. The Cummings Foundation has now awarded more than $260 million to Greater Boston nonprofits alone.

“We are delighted to be selected as one of the Cummings Foundation’s $100K for 100, and eager to put the foundation’s generosity to work, in our programs for women navigating the transition from homeless to housed,” said Sandler. “This level of support will make a tremendous, sustained positive impact on the safety and well-being of On The Rise’s whole community.”

On The Rise will use the funding to resource a seventh community advocate position in the Safe Haven Program, the core programming with homeless women.

The $100K for 100 program supports nonprofits that are based in and primarily serve Middlesex, Essex and Suffolk counties. Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the areas where it owns commercial buildings, all of which are managed, at no cost to the foundation, by its affiliate Cummings Properties.

“By having such a local focus, we aim to make a meaningful positive difference in the communities where our colleagues and leasing clients live and work,” said Joel Swets, Cummings Foundation’s executive director. “We are most grateful for the nonprofit organizations that assist and empower our neighbors, and we are proud to support their efforts.”

This year’s group of grant recipients represent causes such as homelessness prevention, affordable housing, education, violence prevention and food insecurity. Most of the grants will be paid over two to five years.